THll BROTHERS VAN F.YCK. 87 



of the later Middle Ages, when the love for illuminated man- 

 uscripts had spread from Greece, in the East, through south- 

 ern and western lands into the Frankish monarchy, among 

 the Anglo-Saxons and the inhabitants of the Netherlands. 

 It is, therefore, a fact of no slight importance for the history 

 of modern art, that " the celebrated brothers Hubert and Jo- 

 hann van Eyck belonged essentially to a school of miniature 

 painters, which, since the last half of the fourteenth century, 

 attained to a high degree of perfection in Flanders."* 



The historical paintings of the brothers Van Eyck present 

 us with the first instances of carefully-executed landscapes. 

 Neither of them ever visited Italy, but the younger brother, 

 Johann, enjoyed the opportunity of seeing the vegetation of 

 Southern Europe when, in the year 1428, he accompanied the 

 embassy which Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, sent to 

 Lisbon when he sued for the hand of the daughter of King 

 John I. of Portugal. In the Museum of Berlin are preserved 

 the wings of the famous picture which the above-named cele- 

 brated painters — the actual founders of the great Flemish 

 school — executed for the Cathedral at Ghent. On these wings, 

 which represent holy hermits and pilgrims, Johann van Eyck 

 has embellished the landscape with orange and date trees and 

 cypresses, which, from their extreme truth to nature, impart 

 a solemn and imposing character to the other dark masses in 

 the picture. One feels, on looking at this painting, that the 

 artist must himself have received the impression of a vegeta- 

 tion fanned by gentle breezes. 



In considering the master-works of the brothers Van Eyck, 

 we have not advanced beyond the first half of the fifteenth 

 century, when the more highly-perfected style of oil painting, 

 which was only just beginning to replace painting in tempera, 

 had already attained to a high degree of technical perfection. 

 The taste for a vivid representation of natural forms was 

 awakened, and, if we would trace the gradual extension and 

 elevation of this feeling for nature, we must bear in mind that 

 Antonio di Messina, a pupil of the brothers Van Eyck, trans- 

 planted the predilection for landscape painting to Venice, and 

 that the pictures of the Van Eyck school exercised a similar 

 action in Florence on Domenico Ghirlandaio and other mas- 

 ters.t The artists at this epoch directed their efforts to a care- 



* Waagen, op. cit., th. i., 1837, s. 59 ; th. iii., 1839, s. 352-359. [See 

 Lanzi's History of Painting, Doha's Standard Library, 1847, vol. i., p 

 81-87.]— Tr. 



+ " Pinturicchio painted licli and well-compoaed landscapes as inde 



